Ranked #1 of 185 2016 Shiraz from Barossa Valley
98/100
5 Stars
Huon Hooke
Deep, dense, almost inky purple/red colour, with a glorious bouquet of mocha, grilled nuts of various kinds, great concentration and density, which saturates the palate and lasts for minutes on the aftertaste. Smoky, toasty, nutty, graphite and roast meat aromas; charcoal and bitumen, but not fruit! The fruit is there in spadefuls but it is submerged behind a curtain of complexity. An enormously impressive wine, the texture almost improbably supple and smooth in spite of the welter of tannin. Outstanding wine. (Bin 798 has been added to the label this year)
Tasted: 28/08/2018
Drink: 2021 to 2046
97 Points Robert Parker
The 2016 RWT Shiraz is Penfolds's embodiment of Barossa Valley Shiraz. Aged in French oak (72% new), it offers hints of vanilla and cedar, but more than anything, it showcases the region's bold berry and plum fruit. Full-bodied and rich, verging on decadent, yet firmly structured and long on the finish, it's a powerful yet elegant wine that is capable of being consumed young or aging up to two decades. Having embarked on a career in the wine business right around the time the first RWT was released, it's a treat to see how the latest version is showing. It's a relative bargain among the Penfolds upper echelon.
Source: Robert Parker (Robert Parker Wine Advocate) by Joe Czerwinski. October, 2018
97 Points James Halliday
Lovely crimson-purple hue. Intriguing; while the wine is only just into medium to full-bodied territory, the tannins have been sculpted into fine lines to provide the framework for a high quality wine. It thus flies somewhere in the left field, but does so with charm and grace, the length glorious. Drink to 2046.
Source: James Halliday.
98 Points Andrew Caillard MW
Medium deep colour. Intense mulberry chinotto Turkish Delight aromas with roasted chestnut vanillin notes. Well concentrated, rich and voluminous with deep set blackberry, mulberry dark chocolate flavours, fine plentiful slinky grainy tannins and mocha roasted chestnut oak. Finishes tannin and oaky firm with prolonged classic dark berry praline flavours. Still elemental with lovely density and texture. The Penfolds DNA showing through the Barossa aesthetic. Give it 7 years. Drink 2025-2045 Drink 2025 - 2045.
Source: Andrew Caillard, Langton's.